Indonesia becomes Microsoft's biggest growth market in SE Asia

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November 08, 2006 07:45 AM

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesia has overtaken the Philippines as world-software-giant Microsoft's most rapidly growing market in Southeast Asia thanks to a surge in the sales of the company's antivirus products here, a report said Wednesday.

Microsoft Indonesia executive Adrian Anwar has said sales of antivirus products in Indonesia jumped by 230 percent in the first quarter of the company's financial year (July 2006 to September 2006), as compared to the same period last year.

According to Adrian, in terms of sales growth, Indonesia now came first in Southeast Asia after shunting the Philippines into second place, reported English newspaper The Jakarta Post.

Adrian said that Indonesia was now one of Mirosoft's major markets in the Asia-Pacific region, contributing 20 percent of Microsoft's global revenues in the 2006 financial year.

Microsoft Indonesia platform strategy manager Subhan Novianda said that the significant increase in the sales of Microsoft's antivirus software reflected real growth in demand, rather than being due to a decline in the sale of pirated products.

Even though copyright piracy is still high here, Subhan said that for security products, Indonesian buyers preferred the originals.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has upgraded Indonesia's status from Priority Watch List to Watch List on Monday, saying the country had demonstrated its commitment to fighting the problem by enacting a total of seven anti-piracy laws to protect intellectual property rights.

(Xinhua/AsiaNews.Net)